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Review Summary

Thank goodness, or the goddess, for male directors who dig strong female characters. Whatever their reasons, these directors often expand the range of roles women play, whether it’s one of Howard Hawks’s dames calling the shots or one of James Cameron’s. That the French director Luc Besson, an industrious multi-hyphenate, has a thing for femmes fortes has been evident since 1990, when he unleashed a pouty toothpick in “La Femme Nikita,” a delirious, violent fantasy that turned an outlaw into a gun-toting gamine and an exploitable commodity that, in turn, spawned both an American big-screen remake (“Point of No Return”) and a television series. — Manohla Dargis